But teen pregnancy, in itself, is not such a bad thing. By the age of 18, a young woman’s body is well prepared for childbearing. Young men are equally qualified to do their part. Both may have better success at the enterprise than they would in later years, as some health risks—Cesarean section and Down syndrome, for example— increase with passing years. (The dangers we associate with teen pregnancy, on the other hand, are behavioral, not biological: drug use, STD’s, prior abortion, extreme youth, and lack of prenatal care.) A woman’s fertility has already begun to decline at 25—one reason the population-control crowd promotes delayed childbearing. Early childbearing also rewards a woman’s health with added protection against breast cancer.
Younger moms and dads are likely be more nimble at child-rearing as well, less apt to be exhausted by toddlers’ perpetual motion, less creaky-in-the-joints when it’s time to swing from the monkey bars. I suspect that younger parents will also be more patient with boys-will-be-boys rambunction, and less likely than weary 40-somethings to beg pediatricians for drugs to control supposed pathology. Humans are designed to reproduce in their teens, and they’re potentially very good at it. That’s why they want to so much.
Teen pregnancy is not the problem Unwed teen pregnancy is the problem. It’s childbearing outside marriage that causes all the trouble. Restore an environment that supports younger marriage, and you won’t have to fight biology for a decade or more
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Teen pregnancy, either in or out of marriage, produces children who are being raised by children. This not a good thing for either the child or the mother, and it's the point at which many teenage fathers head for the hills.
Few 18-year-olds are financially prepared to take care of a child, though. A child costs a lot of money and needs constant care 24/7 for several years.
I don't think the added protection against breast cancer depends on age, but on pregnancy and breast-feeding, though.
Teenagers usually sleep pretty late in the mornings and can stay up late in the night. Infants and toddlers are usually quite the opposite.
Girls-will-be-girls rambunction needs patience too.
So, you want higher taxes, paid maternity and paternity leave, more social security, more Medicaid, more Planned Parenthood affiliates? You sound like a socialist, although a somewhat old-fashioned one...
Teenagers aren't emotionally mature enough to make a lifelong commitment to another person. Making kids get married is just going to lead either to more divorce or more unhappy marriages. And for every "My grandparents got married at 16 and stayed together for 80 years" story you here there are many, many stories with unhappy endings you never hear about. Not to mention the fact that teenagers are not financially able and often not mature enough to raise a family. Taking someone who's going to school or college and working a minimum wage job, then throwing a baby into the equation and something's going to break.
i see i'm far from the first to point it out, but it deserves restating: the biological ability to gestate and birth a child is by far the least and simplest requirement for parenthood. what comes after is much trickier, and generally can't be done (well) by teenagers.
which is by no means to downplay the difficulties and risks of pregnancy and childbirth; rather it is to underscore just how difficult a job parenthood is. it's not something children should be trying, at all.
Actually, the person has a slight point here. One of the major changes in our society over the past 50-100 years has caused it to be economically unfeasible for young couples of 18 to get married. So young teenagers, as they start dating, look at a potential 10 years before marriage (and sex, in some value systems) and give up on the idea of waiting. While I am certain there was a lot of "not waiting" among previous generations, it's always easier to wait a year or two than 10.
I'm not sure we can change things back - the issues are much too complex. I don't disagree with good jobs for 18 year olds right out of high school but that would require serious policy work on several levels.
Younger moms and dads are likely be more nimble at child-rearing as well, less apt to be exhausted by toddlers’ perpetual motion, less creaky-in-the-joints when it’s time to swing from the monkey bars.
How true that is of parents in their late 20s.
I can remember a time, over half a century back, when jobs were plentiful, medical and housing costs low, public schools fully funded,and college educations available to most...and, even so, the marriages that were celebrated immediately on graduation often collapsed before five years. As for the teen marriages that were also commonplace, I don't know of one that held up.
Eighteen is, furthermore, the very youngest a woman should consider bearing a child. Prior to that, miscarriages are common and maternal and infant mortality are high. Twenty-five is actually considered an optimum age for maternity.
In general, society would be better served by channelling more wealth to the young, who need it for education, travel,marriage, and a start for both businesses and families. Starving them of it until they are too old to do any of this is personally unjust and socially detrinental.
It’s childbearing outside marriage that causes all the trouble.
No. Childbearing only takes nine months. it's childrearing outside marriage that causes all the trouble, and with high divorce rates, young marriage won't solve that problem.
It's true that society today makes it much harder to start a family before 18, which was once the norm. But that's a good thing. It used to be that life expectancy necessitated starting early. Now, we have the option of waiting, which is important for building stronger families.
If you have people get married young, they are more likely to divorce. If you ban divorce, which I suspect is what frederica wants to do, you have children raised in an unhappy environment, which is even worse than single parent households.
"That's why they want to so much"...... lolwut
Teenagers don't want to have kids. They want to have sex. Believe it or not, there is a difference. And while it might make biological sense to start early, we live in a modern society where it is possible to put off reproduction and mating until your brain has fully matured.
Which brings me to the most important point: the brain doesn't mature until the mid twenties. And that, more than your genitals, is what truly determines your happiness in life.
@ Nemo
It's never been the norm. That's a myth perpetuated by modern assumptions about the low age of consent in past centuries (which was placed very low, in part, to protect men from prosecution), just as average life expectancy figures made low by high childhood mortality rates lead people today to believe that most people only lived into their early 40s (also not true).
The average age of marriage for women in the US in the 19th c was around 22-24 for women and 26 for men, and slightly older than that in the 18th c. and before. Teens marrying and having kids was not the norm. People had to wait until they could obtain land.
So how about it, folks? Let's get all of those teens married and out of the house. It can be done subtly. Like, when our boys became six-footers we left recruiting brochures from the Foreign Legion on their pillows.
So, in your own words, a child should educate another child. Look, sweetheart, that the body is prepared, doesn't mean they had the maturity to do so
I tend to disagree with many of you. In old civilizations, people were prepared to deal with children mudh earlier. As Jared Diamond said : "This yound papuan tribeswoman at 14 was more prepared to take care of her child than me at 49".
But that's also the reason why the OP is false : the bodies may be ready to bear children, but the souls are not ready to raise them. For many reasons, we have to wait before being ready, and that's later than before. In other words, the OP does not know what she's speaking about.
But teen pregnancy, in itself, is not such a bad thing.
Yes, it is. And someone of eighteen not a teen, they're a young adult.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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